Mass Effect: Argent
by CamusianN7
Summary: This is the story of Captain Oz Ardor. Salarian STG officer and detective. Three years ago, he was given an amazing opportunity - after an unfortunate incident. He will learn about gruelling toils and despair. In a galaxy of criminals and cut-throats. And he will uncover a sinister conspiracy.
1. Chapter 1: Exordium

Mass Effect: Argent

Chapter 1: Exordium

* * *

Three years ago, I was an above average reconnaissance officer in STG. Until an unfortunate incident at least.

Yet what would have be considered irksome and a burden – is now my supreme advantage.

* * *

2185\. Elysium.

* * *

The day was some sort of holiday. One of those human affairs based on forgotten ancient traditions and folklore used as an excuse for drinking. Bright. Shinning. Distracting neon and LEDs.

Would be exciting.

But tonight was not a prudent time.

I was following a suspect. Had been for a few days now. He went by the name of Art Finnegan. Smuggler. Slaver. 'Shmuck'. A robbery of his went south, rather comically, so he fled to the nearest human colony.

Risky move.

I assumed he would hide in the boisterous crowds – which he did.

Smart move.

Nonetheless I had his him in my sights. Finnegan knew where to move, but not how to cover said moves. His tracks were as visible as a noisy 6ft vorcha wielding a M-451 Firestorm in the Council chambers.

I knew his contacts. Easy to obtain and extort. Clumsy. Cowardly. Thanks to one of Finnegan's unfortunate lackeys, I knew where he would try to go. My foot pressed on the poor man's neck quickly made him spill.

Rough business.

A sadly necessary context.

* * *

The main square of Illyria, Elysium's capital, branched off into many intricate and maze-like high streets.

The crowds were difficult to navigate. The screaming and cheering of some obscure slogan I had no idea about. Diverting.

Fortunately I made it were I needed to be. And waited.

* * *

15 minutes later, Finnegan appeared. The human was stocky. Dressed almost entirely in red. He was dishevelled; anxious looking. On guard.

He was headed to a dingy local café. The lights flickered intermittently. The smell of rusty metal and roasted coffee filtered through the stale air.

It was getting darker now. The shouts of celebration distant – background noise.

I'd set up a spy drone high above the street to see him approach. The dark, almost pitch-black ally I was in gave little field of view, but a perfectly discreet hiding place.

Seeing Finnegan round the corner, I shut off the drone.

Poof.

* * *

I would gamble that poor old Art was going to enjoy some coffee and a snack with his acquaintance waiting in the café. He'd talk, and then disappear. Lay low. Be gone.

Thankfully, food would not be wasted on this scumbag.

He passed the ally beside the café – and would have succeeded. But, of course, I grabbed him.

Advantage of surprise. I pulled him in by the scruff of his collar. Kicked downwards just below his knee.

'Crack'.

Shock took over. Finnegan fell down panting on the ground.

"Wh..oo? Who are you?" He stuttered feebly.

"No-one important," I replied confidently. "Your contact's not important either. Luckily for him, he won't meet me today."

I strode towards his fallen body, and his face shone with a a gruesome expression of shock.

I towered above him.

No ordinary face.

No ordinary strength.

And no ordinary figure of intimidation.

He fell unconscious at the kick of my boot.

* * *

Why was I 'not ordinary'? I'll explain.

Three years ago, I was an above average STG officer. Me along with a squad of 14 other officers were investigating a lead pertaining to an old mining complex on Erinle.

Supposedly overrun with amateur mercenaries. Nobody popular.

Half-way through the investigation, we encountered the mercs. Under-equipped. It should have been easy.

The mercs had the geographical advantage. High ground. Better cover.

We had better weapons and training. Our skills surpassed theirs and they were downed quickly nevertheless.

Yet the leader, a tenacious and ruthless fellow, ceased an opportunity.

Before he bled to death, he noticed a rusted and precariously hanging metal rafter on the ceiling. He shot it down before he finally expired.

The rafter plummeted down from the high ceiling, and crushed my legs.

My right arm was trapped.

The whole squad of other officers downed weapons and rushed towards me. They tried to heave the heavy piece of jagged metal off me – but that only made it worse.

The metal lifted, and quickly fell again. On to my face. My eye – pierced. At that, I fell unconscious.

* * *

I awoke four days later in an STG medical clinic on Sur'Kesh. White lights dazzled me as I woke slowly. My legs were gone. Below the knee at least. I couldn't feel my arm. That was gone too.

My vision adjusted to see a bespectacled salarian doctor smiling at the bedside. The limited field of vision made me aware that one of my eyes was also gone.

"Awake at last I see."

He was too cheery for my predicament, I thought.

"I am sad to say I have some bad news."

How blunt.

"But before that; I am Dr Flolus. I'll be over-seeing your recovery."

"What's the bad news? Get to it." I retorted.

"Very well," he said with an odd optimistic flair, "We cannot replace your legs with organic tissue copied from your DNA. Your DNA has a peculiar coding, a mutation, that inhibits the re-creation of limbs in medical practice."

"Nice to know," I said through gritted teeth.

"But there is...something – if you are up for it?" The doctor sounded unnervingly excited.

"What is it then?"

"Well...STG have been working on a project for a little while. Your...unfortunate situation is actually an opportunity."

"Seems difficult to believe." I replied.

"Someone will be in later to fill you in with the details."

With that he left.

* * *

An hour later, a salarian female followed by something resembling a small harem of men entered my private room.

She was silent, while her team of serfs projected schematics and vids from their omni-tools onto the whitewashed wall.

There were flashes of silver. Incomprehensible readings. Laboratories with robotics chiming and buzzing away. Controlled minor explosions. Broken walls. Even for a salarian the pace of the images and vids was hard to take in.

It turned out that this was a long term project into robotic and cybernetic development. And this project would rejuvenate my brief and futile existence, temper my nihilism, and somehow give a cogent purpose.

I signed up to the project almost immediately. Impatient and brash.

The salarian women, a Dalatrass, explained the processes as they happened. My eye socket, absent of organic optics, would be supplemented by an advanced-yet-subdued, yet-powerful, telescopic lens and computing system to aid in depth perception.

My missing lower arm was, at first, replaced with a metal frame. A few days of gruelling procedures added to the arm a light-armoured casing, reinforced hydraulics – krogan level strength - non-lethal weapon systems, an EMP module, a suppressed firearm, indeed two, and a cutting-edge integrated omni-tool system.

My leg would be just as complex, and just as sterling.

A micro-carbon fibre spring system (hardened with mass effect fields), neurologically controlled gyroscopic footings, a constrained ramming device concealed in the right leg, and two small jump-packs 'borrowed' from a turian Armiger Legion suit.

The whole process took around three weeks. Burdensome weeks. But eventually rewarding.

This came with one caveat.

The hydraulic systems worked with the help of a toxic form of grease. Sadly there was no other substance that performed its function as well.

Thus, a daily cocktail of medications would be required to stop myself from being poisoned.

It was done. I was liberated – albeit shaken. And now, over-eager for action.

* * *

"You will be used for...special operations," said the female salarian ambitiously.

She was Dalatrass Illorian.

Sly. Opaque. But persistent and inspiring.

There were certainly 'special operations' all right. I worked alone. Hunting the most devilish criminals with complete discretion and ease.

Too much ease.

I got cocky. I would act as if above most, if not all, of my peers. I lost friends – but I thought the power was worth that cost.

That would soon change, but not before a strenuous string of events.

Streets coated in blood. Hidden predilection. The hatred of philistines. I would encounter all of that.

* * *

I was unrestricted. I, was Project Argent.


	2. Chapter 2: The Poorer Citadel

Mass Effect: Argent

Chapter 2: The Poorer Citadel

* * *

I caught up with a few STG colleagues covertly stationed on Elysium - to hand over Finnegan. Didn't bother with the 'paperwork' back then. Or what amounted to guard duty.

I felt much too proud of myself; I'd let them sort him out.

* * *

My omni-tool buzzed with a message from STG command, the seals of authentication proving its validity.

A new case. Someone had gone missing, and likely been murdered, on the Citadel. Some diplomat called Ellrin Marlis.

They were not of the highest importance - only some lackey, comparatively. A liaison for the Salarian Union.

What was peculiar, however, (and why the case must have been referred to me) was why would a diplomat, or anyone of some repute, be in this part of the Citadel?

The Tezak district.

* * *

The Tezak district has never been heard of by most people. I had only heard of it by chance about a year ago thanks to a gossiping STG officer on an information binge. Even then, it was considered rumour.

It is, according to the tiny amount of rumour and conjecture concerning it, a small section of the wards within the deepest bowls of the Citadel – where drug gangs and criminal underground coteries somehow, supposedly, rule supreme. It was also shrouded in myth.

The Citadel Council have actively been covering-up the existence of Tezak since its conception. It is a place almost completely alien to the rest of the Citadel. Very out-of-place.

It is, of course, unfathomably and sadly found by the most destitute of people needing some sort of shelter.

For all the wrong that can be said of them, Citadel authorities do surprisingly well in finding basic living accommodations for nearly everyone – refugees, the homeless, vagabonds – on the Citadel. Ever seen someone sleeping in the streets on The Citadel?

No.

Except for the few 'duct rats'.

* * *

This is where The Citadel becomes an anomaly of sorts. The reduction of 'overt' visible poverty on the Citadel is close to one of the most efficient logistical exercises ever undertaken by the the galactic authorities.

Almost as efficient as the rapid introduction of thermal clips for all new (or modified) weapons across the galaxy. Or the universal phasing-out of omni-gel. Both rather, and inexplicably, quick.

Locations almost everywhere around the galaxy where the impoverished are present, are often visibly, aesthetically, downtrodden.

Dirty, broken, or under-maintained.

Poverty on the Citadel is different because it is always relatively clean, whatever the net worth of the people living in an area, due to the tireless work of the keepers.

There is certainly a different atmosphere to the less prosperous areas of the wards. Maybe a little less lighting. Fewer businesses. Less diverse architecture. But they always have a sterile and tidy air to them. Murders and messy crimes, if not cleaned up by C-Sec, will always mysteriously be cleaned away.

The poorest parts seem very eerie due to the unique context of this galactic superstructure. Yet even the 20-something floors of Zakera, although considered 'poor', where still lit with a multitude of lights and resident to dozens of businesses.

It was still thought to be underprivileged – and still is – but the poverty of Zakera seemed like nothing.

Tezak was quite different.

* * *

Tezak is possibly one of the poorest areas on The Citadel. A possible theory for why the Council have covered it up for years. Embarrassment maybe? Bribes from whatever crimelords are at play?

No-one knew for sure. I would certainly find something while investigating the place.

From the very little number of formal accounts that exist (which amounts to one neglected report by an asari C-Sec captain); the place is described as dim, but not brown and grimy. The walls are texture-less, a dull unblemished grey being the only present hue. The only businesses, apart from the criminal rings and smaller number of disparate gangs, were a number of food dispensaries. Almost completely absent of advertisements.

Otherwise, it was home to a few dozen residential units. Small. Like ship containers. Hidden behind false walls with seemingly no features to distinguish which is which, and where anything is. The place was cramped, with only one or two open squares. It was likely witness to murders and assaults every other day – but they seemed to be forgotten. Hyperreal desensitisation.

The population somehow stayed level nonetheless (if it ever could be counted); the occasional ruffian or desperate refugee unfortunate enough to stumble across Tezak would hardly ever leave – and would not talk of their experiences if they did.

Officially, nobody knows why.

* * *

The Council cover-up, by those very few in the know, was said to merit counter-productive results. It only allowed freer reins for the criminal overlords to rule with an iron fist in their forgotten and isolated hollow.

I closed the message from STG command, and ventured to my private shuttle.

An STG V-7 Spacer-Jet. Nothing special. I was a specialist detective, not an all-in soldier. It got me to where I was needed. I was not hunting space pirates and mercs. I was investigating crimes. Any combat was by hand, not by turret.

It had a few non-lethal defensive capabilities, but I never remember having to use them. It was speedy enough to get away from most altercations anyway.

It took me a little while to get to Illyria's spaceport, but after getting to the ship, the pre-flight checks were quick, and I was soon blasting off – in orbit, meeting the relay, shooting towards the Serpent Nebula, and arriving at The Citadel.

When docked, I had to plan my next step. Despite the information on hand from the records and a few extranet searches, the location of the Tezak district was formally unknown. How was I going to get in and find out what to Marlis? How in ever did he end up in Tezak?

How was I going to even find an unknown location in a place 44.7km in length and 12.8km in diameter? Amongst 13.2 million people?

I thought a good first stop would be a blunt and forward attack. Ask those who have been covering-up the existence of the place for over 20 years.

* * *

So I headed for the Presidium.


	3. Chapter 3: Notes From the Chambers

Mass Effect Argent

Chapter 3

Notes From the Chambers

* * *

I thought I should, as my first move, file a formal request to the Citadel Council, or the correct governmental department, to obtain the location of Tezak.

This was a very risky move, but even if it back-fired, it would uncover how far the Citadel authorities would be willing to go to keep Tezak in the dark and out of the public domain.

And, thus, some parameter for what level of secrecy Tezak is under.

Barging into the Department of Infrastructure this early seemed a bit too bold. So I would leave that for later, if the situation came to that, I thought.

The sum of all my info was only that there is a place called Tezak, and it has been covered-up for years. I did not know who exactly was behind the cover-up, even whether the Salarians, or, I dare say, STG, were somehow complicit in the conspiracy. I could also not be too sure of the authenticity of the few reports that did exist.

Politics is a career for the mediocre. It is a sly game of profligate organs with little real life blood. Not much needs to be said of it that has already been said. It is dull; and its corruption explicit even under covert hands.

With the little intelligence I had at hand, I carefully set about performing the next step in my brewing plan.

* * *

I filed a request, in-part anonymously, as some C-Sec lackey looking for information on a fictitious crime. Fortunately, I knew how to file the request in a way that did not raise suspicion towards myself.

I would have to lie low for a few days on The Citadel before barging around for information. Again, that would make me more visible than I wanted to be.

* * *

I made sure to conceal my robotic upgrades. They would draw further attention, and were technically illegal in Council space.

No surprise there.

I wore a partial cloak and some simple clothing to appear more ordinary. And then I just had to wait.

I acted as patron to a few bars and shops in an attempt convey normalcy and carry out some further research.

Eventually, I got a response.

* * *

After returning from a café situated in a nicer part of the wards, my omni-tool buzzed to signify a message. My own suspicion rose when the rely stated...

"Unfortunately, we cannot reveal government secrets for that would breach Citadel Security."

How ironic. Suspiciously short.

I knew the civil servant who had sent the reply, a turian named Decimus, and knew just where I would need to go to find what I needed – in due thanks to where he resided and where my request had obviously been filed for review.

I did not know if my anonymity had been breached by whatever hacking procedures the authorities had in place, so I would just have to be extra prepared.

* * *

I had to get into the main offices of the Department of Infrastructure. I theorised that any reports may be filed away somewhere within the there, or encoded in their computer systems (and likely protected by the advanced anti-virus and anti-decryption software).

The next problem was actually getting into the department. Luckily there was more than one way to get into the Citadel tower and its subsidiary offices.

Late in the evening, I smuggled a few concealable weapons from my ship through Citadel security. I had hidden offensive armaments within my mechanised limbs, but something else would be useful if the game went south.

I got into a skycar, rented by an alias, and zipped off to the Presidium. The lake shone beneath me, glistening off the krogan monument.

* * *

I appreciated that monument immensely. As an piece of art as well as for its symbolism. While I found, in current context, the genophage to be a sound scientific and logical measure for stabilising the krogan population, it was very much unethical – and did not stand proudly with me.

I blamed the turians for its deployment more than my fellow salarians, but even still I felt a personal complicity.

Maybe without the genophage the krogan would have entered a cultural renaissance instead of wasting away as mercenaries. Or maybe they would just overrule the galaxy by sheer numerical force and abandon. Both seemed conjectural and so I could not be convinced either way.

* * *

Eventually, I was passing the main area of the Presidium, and would make my dastardly move. In retrospect this was too much of a gamble – and I am not entirely sure how I pulled it off.

I set the skycar to its autopilot setting, and programmed it to land somewhere convenient after I departed it.

With the car driving itself at a steady pace, I opened the door, poised myself, and jumped from the car.

Using my armiger jump-packs, I glided slowly towards the Citadel tower and landed on its side below a window.

The Department of Infrastructure had its main office a few floors up from where I had landed. In the distance, the skycar had closed its door, and the Vi programme was piloting it safety to the nearest parking space.

I scuttled along the bottom of the window I was hanging from to the wall in order to avoid possible detection. I would soon be noticed, and this was stupidly risky.

Using the standard anti-gravity module (common in most armour) installed in my robotic feet, I climbed up the face of the tower, and to the window I needed to be.

A quick peak revealed my calculation of the main office location to be accurate, and nobody seemed to be inside. The employees were on there break, just as I had timed. The extranet often comes in convinient.

The window worked on a sliding mechanism so it could be opened from the inside via a button, but it had a safety protocol to limit how far it could open and stop the unsuspecting office workers from falling out of it.

Of course I had prepared for this contingency and started to hack into the electronic mechanism. If the window mechanism was a simple mechanical lever or handle, I would not be able to break in silently and would just have to break the window.

There was an irony in the truth that a simple, less technologically advanced entity, would beat the progressive contemporary one.

With a click, the door slid open fully and I stepped into the dim office.

* * *

The room was a series of linear tables, adorned with computers, placed along the walls of the room, with a small processing station in the middle of the room that looked like a ship's CIC.

I went to the nearest computer and plugged my computer decryption bug into the socket. It would only filter through and look at information, and make a picture copy if it found anything interesting, instead of downloading all the data and risk getting caught.

My detective training was now put to work. I would have to work quickly and see if I could move to the side offices if no pertinent information could be found, and if the staff were still at lunch.

I'd need to be quick.

I went to the filing cabinet mark 'restricted files'. Locked, obviously. Decrypting this lock would only set off an alarm, so I simply broke it with my superior mechanical strength.

This seemed much too easy, but getting into the office conventionally would have required door passes, retinal identification, and voice recognition. I don't think they planned for someone breaking into a window 50 floors above the ground.

The cabinet had nothing inside pertaining to Tezak, but it did include some interesting files about slightly illegal payments to building corporations, and details on how some contractors had really died a few years ago while re-building part of the wards. I took some photographs and placed the files back. There would be no finger prints given my hand was synthetic.

* * *

My bug bleeped. Nothing. There was no data on Tezak at all in the main office, and I could not risk breaking into another department.

Quite suddenly, my cover was blown. "Hey, you!" I heard behind me.

A member of staff had walked in and seen me. I should have been quicker. He run out quickly and pressed an alarm.

The droning noise emanated nosily throughout the whole building. I thought I was skilled, my selfish egotism resounding, but how could I think I was able to accomplish information theft from the centre of galactic government?

I leapt to cover, sighting the open window behind me. At that, responding with surprising haste to the alarm, a collection of guards entered the room and, without warning, open fired.

Paper's flew from the tables. Bullets wasted in the wall instead of their target. I was ducked behind the the console in the middle of the room, but with the suppressing fire I would have trouble getting to the window unscathed.

"Get out here! How!" Shouted one of the guards. The firing stopped. "Get out here now, and we will not fire!"

They seemed foolhardy. Why not a prior warning before firing in the first place? They did not even identify me.

With the pause, I took the opportunity to use one of my many gadgets. I took the torch that was attached to my pistol, and switched on its strobe-light setting. I widened the focus of the light to encompass a broader area, and place the torch on the table to shine the light above the centre console.

The guards gasped and shouted as they were temporarily blinded.

I swiftly picked up the torch, and without looking, jumped out the window.

* * *

I fell a quite a few stories before catching my bearings. A couple of stories from the ground, I activated the jump packs to dampen my fall, and grabbed onto the sill of the third story window. With an organic arm, I would have failed in this endeavour.

Luckily, my arm was not organic.

From that, I leapt to the floor, landed with a role, and ran; I was near the taxi bay and so got into the nearest credulous skycar taxi, and speeded quickly to the outer wards.

The escape was easier than I thought. Though who would normally be able to jump from a 50th floor window to the floor and survive in the space of a few seconds? I was steps ahead of them. I would have to acquire the information by other means.

* * *

Time for plan B.


	4. Chapter 4: Vital Abstracts

Mass Effect Argent

Chapter 4

Vital Abstracts

* * *

"You seem in a bit of a hurry," said the skycar taxi driver.

"Late for a meeting – drive," I lied.

He started to meander away from the Presidium at a leisurely pace. "Anywhere in particular?" Asked the driver. He was a human, dark skinned, a bizarre accent of which I could not decipher any origin. He also had a bohemian hair style of thick and long messy locks. I had always found human hair rather peculiar.

"32nd floor. Kithoi Ward," I replied, rather too bluntly.

"Can do," responded the driver - without a further word. He gave me a quick disconcerted look. Probably put-off by by telescopic eye.

Visible cybernetic upgrades and augments were less common in Council space than the Terminus or the Attican Traverse.

* * *

The 32nd floor of Kithoi Ward was home to a few business centres and market stalls. Otherwise, as should be commonly known, Kithoi is the local of the Council Central Archives, Taralos Amphitheatre, Edroki Plaza, Larathos Institution, and Kithoi Point – it being more of a cultural hub than a occupational or financial hub.

The archives could be another place I would have to break into for possible information on Tezak. The Department of Infrastructure normally kept its most important information close at hand in its central offices, like many Council departments, whereas more historical information would be hidden in the archives; plus it would be harder to break into the archives without Spectre access than the Citadel Tower offices.

I did not really want to contend with that.

How I got into the towers was mostly by good fortune more than skill. Security was focused more internally than, well, at its windows.

I would also have to abstain from more public appearances if I appeared on the news. If I was identified in the first place.

* * *

The Citadel authorities, and their individual departments, have a nebulous attitude to where they store specific information. Most likely to repress fraud or data theft.

* * *

The taxi had a small vid screen in the back broadcasting news. The channel could not be changed, but the screen could be turned off.

The channel was ANN. Some woman was blabbering away about the reported return of Commander Shepard. One of the few humans I deeply respected despite never meeting them.

STG knew a bit about Shepard's disappearance, and that Shadow Broker agents and the human supremacist group Cerberus were somehow involved in their return.

The grapevine, if such a thing still existed in the age of the extranet, within STG, said they had actually died (instead of gone missing for unknown and odd purposes), and was somehow brought back from the dead by Cerberus, and was now working for them.

STG had some operatives keeping tabs on Cerberus funding at behest of the Council, and a few of their donors were known. Otherwise, they where a surprisingly opaque organisation considering funding and personnel.

I found it surprising that others' had not just thrown copious amounts of credits at a project to bring someone back from the dead. In this age it was quite theoretically possible.

* * *

"So...What do you do?" Asked the taxi driver rather suddenly. I was taken aback by the suddenness of the question, but gathered my composure quickly enough, and relayed my usual well-rehearsed cover story.

"I am film critic," I said without elaborating.

"Oh, okay then. What are you doing now then, if I may ask."

"There's a...conference at Edroki Plaza. Nothing important."

"Ah. Okay...," the driver seemed slightly reticent.

After a long silent pause in conversation, he spoke up again.

"That's an...an interesting eye you've got there."

"Ah..oh that. Scaffolding," I told in half-truth.

"Scaffolding?"

"Yes. Some fell on me on a trip to Bekenstein," I lied again.

"It looks expensive," the driver enquired.

"A little," I said. "Sur'Kesh's international healthcare is rather generous."

I was not lying there. It was possibly one of thee best funded and well-run healthcare systems in the galaxy. But even they would not have forked out for a state-of-the-art military spec eye-piece. Certainly not one with a 120X optical zoom and built-in Vi system.

The driver's enquires finally stopped.

* * *

"We're here," the driver announced at the docking area of Kithoi's 32nd floor.

"Thank you," I proclaimed as I picked myself up out of the car and flashed my omni-tool for the credits transfer.

The driver was shocked. "Sir, you gave me 20 credits too..."

I was already walking away. I was feeling generous for some reason.

Kithoi was more rowdy than usual. I was slightly startled by the larger gathering in the ordinarily sparser surroundings of Kithoi this time in the day. A quick look at a news screen on the wall announced that there was a one-off showing of Francis Kitt's Elcor version of Hamlet by Shakespeare at the Taralos Amphitheatre, and volus comedienne Farsha Nor was also visiting as part of her critically lauded galactic comedy tour 'The Ammonia Smell'.

I was not a fan of the historical human bard (although I did enjoy a few articles of human literature), but was fond of Nor's controversial style of falsely-sociopathic non-sequiturs and deadpan.

I calibrated my omni-tool for news alerts regarding anything to do with the Citadel Tower or my little escapade. So far nothing, which I found odd.

* * *

I was surprisingly hungry, and thus retreated to a small salarian café. 'Keledra's.'

I was not overly happy with the ethnocentric clientèle consisting in salarians and salarians only (I would much prefer cosmopolitan surroundings), but at least I would blend in more desirably.

I ordered some Dagnesean mulworm soup and a glass of coort (alike to a very bitter human wine with less of an intoxicated after-effect).

The soup was more sour than usual, but felt fine. And the coort was somehow better than normal.

After the refreshments and a tip for the waiter, I went to the lavatory.

* * *

Inside the uncommonly well-furnished toilet cubicle, I had another look through STG's databases for any contacts or something I could have missed.

I was starting to really dislike this assignment. I was given limited contact to STG command after prior orders as a safety procedure. I was almost, but not quite, like a kite – able to be severed if all went to shit; so STG could deny responsibility in a gross situation.

This was double-edged of course. My 'planning' now seemed to be making itself up as I went along.

This was more spontaneous and impulsive than premeditated and fully-conscious.

Sadly, I would have to take a last resort.

* * *

I did not like to be dealing in the unscrupulousness of Shadow Broker agents personally, but there was only one somewhat trusted lead on the Citadel who could link me to somebody inside Tezak. I would now have to take it.

STG would not typically like to contend with Shadow Broker agents unless completely necessary.

It was safer to keep important intel to ourselves than reveal data in a repartee with agents likely to sell-off critical knowledge for credits.

The database had a private line I could call. A longer number than usual. It linked me to somebody I did not enjoy the company of – at all.

I walked out of the café and called the number on my telecommunications device.

The cell rang for a while until it was finally picked up.

"Barla Von here, Financial advisor. How may I help you," breathed the voice on the other side of the line.

"Von," I replied, "I am afraid I need your assistance."


End file.
